Tome of the Undergates

Twenty-Four

It was with great clarity that Asper recalled the very first time she wondered whether Talanas truly loved her.

One year ago, following a short, wiry young man with silver hair, as his barbarous shict followed him, her doubt had been a brief, niggling gnat she could easily swat away. A disciple of the Healer’s pilgrimage, after all, required many opportunities to witness and learn from injury as well as to see what good could be wrought from those situations.

While most joined their local militias or armies, Asper was handed the bad luck to be born in an era where no one was particularly eager to slaughter each other on a mass scale. Adventurers, at the very least, provided ample opportunity to observe injury and all manner of wounds and diseases.

Her doubt had grown with each member added to their band: the murderous brigand, the heathen wizard and the savage monster. When they had finally met Miron Evenhands and agreed to aid his mission to commune with the heavens, it had dissipated.

But now, as she squatted in the underbrush of Ktamgi’s forest, watching the prow of the black vessel carve through the water, her doubt returned. And like a rash left untreated, it blossomed with a triumphant festering.

The ship, carved long and sleek from a wood so dark as to devour the sun, slid along the shoreline. With every push of the thick oars, every grunt of effort from those who pushed them, the crew became distinct, each one an ugly purple bruise upon the ship’s low-set deck.

At first, she wondered if she might be hallucinating, wondered if some native pollen had seeped into her nostrils and twisted her sight into some miasma of ebon and violet. She certainly had never seen such creatures as dotted the benches on the vessel.

Their purple flesh, generously exposed by the hammered sheets of iron they wore over their chests, was pulled hard and taut over muscles that flexed and shimmered in sweat-laden harmony. Their black hair resembled a row of hedges, each one trimmed with similarly violent style and cut close to their powerful jawlines.

It was their eyes that caught Asper’s attention, however: rows of narrowed, white diamonds without pupil or iris, each one set deep into the sockets of a long, narrow face.

Asper felt herself cringe inwardly. These, then, were the source of the carnage upon the blackened beach. She found it easy enough to believe; as the ship pulled closer, she could make out the thick iron blades strapped to their belts, two to each man, dark and ominous against their muscular purple thighs.

And yet, for all their menace and jagged edges, they appeared to be nothing more than ordinary blades. Not even well-made ones at that, she thought, each one resembling little more than a long spike. What, then, enabled these men to slaughter the demons as they had done?

That question suddenly became far less relevant to her as another one forcefully entered her mind through her widening eyes.

Are. . are they. . slowing down?

‘NYUNG!’

She winced at the sound: a harsh, alien bark that was difficult to distinguish between an actual spoken language and a bodily function. Whichever, the men seemed to understand it well enough. With an equally unintelligible roar in reply, they dug their oars into the sands of the shoals, bringing the ship to a sudden halt, bobbing ominously in the surf.

Though she was shocked to admit it, her first thought was not for herself, but rather for her companions. Gariath and Dreadaeleon were still vanished, chasing whatever it was that made each of them respectively useless at that moment. What would happen, she wondered, fearful, if they should stumble upon the purple creatures disembarked and eager to dismember?

Then again, she reasoned, perhaps their disappearance upset her for the sole reason that magic and claws would be much better for a potential fight than a hefty stick and harsh language.

Whenever her companions planned on returning, however, they’d have to deal with whatever metal bits would be inevitably jammed into their orifices themselves. She had no intention of moving from her cover in the first place, and the sudden sound that arose from the ship’s deck did nothing to persuade her.

There was a sharp groan, followed by a heavy slamming sound, as though someone thought it a good idea to drag a bag of particularly old door hinges in a particularly thin sack across the deck. With each passing breath, the sound grew to resemble the distinct pound of footsteps. And with each heavy fall of the heel, the realisation grew in Asper’s heart with a chill.

Talanas help me. . they’re coming ashore.

From the rear of the ship rose a great white plume, stalking between oarsmen who, at its presence, lowered their heads. It strode to the prow of the ship and Asper could see it was a stiff topknot stretched tightly above a particularly long face. The man, noticeably taller and more muscular than his dark-haired companions, stood at the vessel’s bow and swept a white-eyed glare across the shore.

Asper had to clap her hand over her mouth at the sound of shattered surf as he placed a gauntleted hand upon the railing and hoisted himself over. Trudging through the waves with a contemptuous stride, he emerged onto the shore, purple flesh and black armour glistening.

Despite his proximity, close enough for her to see the hard sneer etched into his long, hairless face, Asper couldn’t help but lean closer to study the man. There was something off about him, she noted, for as tall and powerful as he was, there were too many decidedly unmasculine qualities to him.

The skirt-like garment that hung from his belt exposed legs that should have been covered in greasy, grimy hair; even Dreadaeleon had that. But his legs were smooth, as was the rest of his purple flesh. His armour, a haphazard collection of blackened chain and plate, was sparse, exposing a muscular abdomen that was also hairless. It was the particular curvature of his breastplate that caught her eye, though: the metal was curved, seemingly needlessly, as though it had been wrought to fit. .

The realisation knocked her to her rear.

‘Sweet suffering Sun God, it’s a woman.’

Why wouldn’t they be? she asked herself. Females more massive than men would certainly fit with the absolute nothingness she knew of these alien things.

The rest of them, she realised, were also female. Their curves became more apparent, though hard and unyielding. Their chins bore a feminine angle, but only vaguely. Their faces resembled first the same hard iron they wore, but secondly women.

Women, she realised, but only barely so; the one standing upon the beach even less.

Taller than a man, lean and hard as a spear, she surveyed the shore through a long, narrow face. Her eyes were hard and white, not the colour of milk but of angry quartzites, sharp enough to draw blood with a mere gaze. Even her hair was menacing, topknot rising like a white spire from the crown of her head, the rest of it pulled tightly against her skull.

For as much ferocity as she oozed, however, it was nothing compared to the weapon clenched in her hand. Resembling nothing so much as a broad, flattened sheet of iron with a hilt jutting from it, the sword looked to be easily the size of a small man, yet this longface, this woman, clenched it with familiar, five-fingered ease.

No, wait, Asper noted, four fingers. The gauntlet covering her hand had only three digits and one thumb, the middle being decidedly larger than the others. She blinked, took a moment to consider.

Four-fingered, purple-skinned, white-haired, longfaced women who carry giant slabs of metal, she paused to swallow, and kill demons.

Quietly, she looked up to the sun, beaming proudly upon this towering woman and asked.

‘Why?’

‘SCREAMER!’

Asper staggered back twice; once for the sudden snarl from the woman’s mouth and twice for the fact that she was apparently speaking the human tongue. She froze, fearing that the sound of her rump scraping across the dirt might have attracted attention. For the strange woman’s part, however, she seemed much more concerned with the state of the beach than anything else.

And the beach seemed to annoy her immensely. With another growl, she hefted her huge weapon and brought it down in an explosion of sand. Sand, Asper noted, that was suddenly green as it landed in sizzling blobs upon the shore.

She squinted and, upon eyeing the sickly emerald shimmer to the weapon’s edge, the reason for the Abysmyth’s death at the longfaces’ hands became apparent.

‘Semnein Xhai!’

Another voice, far less hurried and harsh, lilted from the ship as another figure stepped to the prow.

In shocking contrast to the others, this woman was a head and a half shorter than the rest, clad in silken fineries as opposed to heavy black plate. Her face was more rounded, as though better nourished. The billowing velvet of her black and gold robe could not obscure her figure, either. Where the others were lean and hard, this one was frail and slender, where the others bore the modest swell of breasts. .

‘Oh, you can’t be serious. .’ Asper muttered to no one in particular.

The male looked wildly out of place amongst the metal and muscle. Where the females sat attentively, grips shifting between oars and weapons, he reclined lazily upon the prow, daintily covering a yawn with a slender hand.

He looked almost approachable, Asper thought, at least compared to the others. The images of the frogmen, frozen upon the earth, and the Abysmyth, shrieking out its last breath, were fresh in her mind. That, and the imposing white-haired female between them, kept her still and silent.

For that reason, though, a thought occurred to her. Fierce as they were, these longfaces had slain an Abysmyth, an impossible task done to an impossible foe. Whatever their motives, they had removed one more piece of filth that stood between herself and the tome.

After all, she reasoned, it wasn’t as though she travelled with the most gentle-looking people herself. Perhaps these longfaces could be trusted, perhaps these longfaces could be her key to delivering Lenk and the others from Irontide.

Of course, perhaps they’d simply carve her open and wear her intestines as laurels and call it a day.

At the very least, it would have helped to have known what they were saying.

The male at the prow called to the white-haired warrior with a lazy lilt, the language not quite so foul from his lips. In response, she whirled about, howling what were undoubtedly curses in her twisted tongue. The male repeated himself with a smirk, holding up a single digit, one of five, Asper noted, and wiggled it.

The female bristled, hard body trembling with restrained fury.

Though she looked like she would have, and could have, hurled her giant cleaver at the male, she settled for stalking back to the ship. Her angry snarl commanded the sound of two sets of boots rumbling up the deck and, within moments, two more of the females had disembarked and stood before her with hard-faced attention.

She barked orders, accompanied alternately by wild gestures and ironclad slaps across the chin. Barely fazed, the females grunted in response, smashing gauntleted fists together in a gesture that appeared half-salute, half-challenge and uttering a unified roar in response.

‘QAI ZHOTH!’

The white-haired female gave them a long, hard stare, as though appraising them. Apparently satisfied, she snarled at them and hefted her weapon over her shoulder. Asper noted grimly the ease with which she hoisted both herself and the weight of metal upon her back into the ship. Tense as she was, though, she couldn’t help but spare a relieved breath as the females’ grunting rose with their oars, pushing the ship away from the shoreline.

The longfaces were departing, leaving her with two heavily armed, possibly deranged purple women.

The thought momentarily crossed her mind to make her move now: as powerful and fierce-looking as these two were, they still resembled dainty purple milkmaids in the shadow of the white-haired one. Perhaps the opportunity to discover what they were about and whether they might be of use was now.

She quickly retracted that thought as they slid short, stabbing spikes of iron from their belts. Exchanging a momentary scowl with motives unreadable, they turned and began to stalk off towards opposite ends of the beach. Like narrow-faced hounds, they swept the shore with hard stares, searching.

But for what?

Horror’s icy fingers suddenly seized her by the throat, her breath dying with the sudden realisation: it didn’t matter what they were searching for, so much as what they would find. And, if their eyes were for more than just looking menacing, they would undoubtedly find tracks.

Her tracks.

If they didn’t think to search the forest after that, she would have been shocked. However, an old adage involuntarily came to her mind: the Gods frequently offered gifts in threes. Given that she had already been handed giant purple men-women in addition to giant black fish-things, it would seem a shame if they both didn’t try to kill her.

Her options were so slim as to be an emaciated wretch begging for food.

Running was clearly futile; deserted islands tended to leave very little room for evasion. Fighting them was similarly discarded; neither longface’s unyielding muscle seemed to suggest that a staff’s blow would have any greater result than a stern talking-to.

Clearly, then, she reasoned, someone else would have to do the fighting.

She glanced up and down the beach and frowned; each one of the longfaces had departed in the same directions her companions had. If she didn’t find them first, the females undoubtedly would. Then she might never find out if they were friend or foe before the others decided to eviscerate or burn them alive.

That was, of course, if they didn’t simply gut her companions first.

Then again, she thought, rubbing her jaw where Gariath had struck her, maybe that’s not so bad. She growled, giving herself a light thump to the head. No, no, no. Stop thinking like that. Don’t end up like them.

She would stick to the forest, she imagined, skirt the trees to keep out of their sight until she could find Dreadaeleon or Gariath. Even if the longfaces were allies to be won, negotiations would go much easier accompanied by four hundred pounds of red muscle or one hundred pounds of fire and lightning.

The sole question remaining, then, was why there was so much activity atop Irontide’s battlements.

She wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been so prominent. The crown of white was now alive, the Omens writhing and hopping about, emitting all manner of chattering jabber that carried over the waves. The sight of them, their countless bulbous eyes shining like ugly, unpolished jewels, made Asper’s stomach roil; they had been bad enough when they stood still.

And yet, it wasn’t until she noticed a distinct empty space that she truly began to worry as another question crept intrusively into her mind and onto her lips.

‘Where’d the big one go?’

Her question was answered in the chattering of teeth that filled the air behind her, carried on a cloud of acrid fish reek. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, kissed by a wisp of salt-laden, hot breath. The fear came over her in a cold blanket, freezing muscles that begged her to run, paralysing a neck that shrieked at her to turn around.

Heat returned to her as she heard something behind her speak in a guttural mimic of her own voice.

‘Where’d the big one go?’

She whirled, eyes going as wide as the eyes staring into hers. Two bulbous blue orbs stared at her, unblinking, from an old crone’s face. Asper’s lips pursed for a moment, unable to find the words to form a prayer holy enough to ward against what she saw.

The creature’s eyes stared at her from where the chin ought to have been, the hooked nose curving sharply above them like a long, fleshy horn. Breathlessly, the priestess stammered, trying to form a curse, and her words were echoed back to her from a pair of jaws creaking open upon the creature’s forehead.

Trembling hand clenching her pendant, she muttered a word.

‘Run,’ she gasped to herself, ‘run.’

‘Run,’ her own voice replied from the creature’s jaws.

Legs refusing to obey, she all but collapsed backwards out of the foliage and onto the beach, arms swiftly dragging her away from the creature. The Omen was not deterred, and leapt from the underbrush in a great flap of white wings to land before her.

In the daylight, the thing was even more horrific. From its upside-down face ran a long neck, leading to a body that resembled an underfed stork. The creature crawled forwards on bony hands blue with swollen veins that jutted from its wing-joints. Its face was blank and expressionless, teeth chattering as its eyes locked on to Asper, who sat frigid and unable to move before it.

The Omen rose up on webbed, yellow feet and spread its wings, exposing a pair of withered breasts that trembled as the creature drew in a deep breath and dropped its massive, inverted jaws.

Whatever sound it might have made, whether a curse or the shrill mockery of Asper’s own terror, was lost in a whining shriek and a hollow slamming sound. Something silver whirled violently through the air. Asper blinked and, when she opened her eyes, a leather-bound hilt jutted from the creature’s neck. With its face still unchanged, the Omen gurgled slightly, lowered its arms and keeled over.

The Omen lay leaking dark red upon the sand. Asper could not find the breath to scream, nor to do anything but stare open-eyed and open-mouthed at the twitching corpse before turning to gawk at the sound of heavy boots crunching across the sand.

The longface’s stride was casual and unhurried as she stalked towards the Omen, her face appearing more perturbed than anything. Completely heedless of the priestess sitting paralysed beside it, she merely leaned down and pulled the long blade, its edge jagged and thick with life, from the creature, her only expression being the hint of a smile that emerged alongside the choked squawk from the parasite as she ripped the weapon free.

When Asper finally spoke, the words came as a shock to her.

‘Th-thank you,’ she gasped.

The longface turned and lifted a black brow, as though she hadn’t noticed the woman until just now. Despite the not-entirely-friendly expression, Asper shakily rose to her feet and dusted her robe off, offering the woman a weak smile.

‘If you hadn’t come along just now. .’ She cleared her throat. ‘Can you understand me?’

The longface cocked her head at that and Asper sighed. Of course, she muttered in her head, that was much better.

‘All right,’ she said resignedly. ‘You can’t understand me. We’ll work around that. But you did help me and you did kill what I’m supposed to be killing. So, for now,’ she extended a hand and a broad smile to her purple rescuer, ‘we can satisfy ourselves with that, can’t we?’

The longface regarded Asper’s hand with apparent concern, eyeing it for a moment as if unsure what to do with it. For a moment, the priestess felt her heart stop as the longface shoved her bloodied blade back into her belt without cleaning it. While the sensation she felt as the purple female seized her hand in a red, sticky gauntlet was not what she thought she could call ‘good’ in all conscience, it was with no small relief that she saw the longface smile back, exposing rows of jagged teeth.

The feeling was decidedly ruined when the longface pulled her forwards violently and drove a purple knee into her belly.

She staggered backwards, clutching at her stomach. Her left arm throbbed angrily, pulsing with a life all its own, a foreign, fiery blood coursing through it. Swiftly, she seized it with her weak right hand, clutching it as though it were a feral dog.

No, no, no! NO! Not now! She grimaced at her arm, and it seemed to scowl back at her, as if to ask, Then when?

She found no ready answer as the longface stalked forwards, eyes glimmering cruelly in their sockets. Feebly, the priestess held up her right hand, half in futile warding, half in unpitied plea.

‘No! No!’ she hacked. ‘That’s. . not. . I didn’t want to. .’ She staggered to her feet, knees threatening to give out beneath her as she backpedalled awkwardly. ‘Listen. Listen!’

She stumbled backwards, saved from falling only as the red gauntlet reached out to seize her by her collar. With a harsh jerk, she was brought face to longface, a jagged, white smile added to the ivory stare. And the longface spoke with a voice as harsh and grating as the iron spike sliding from her belt.

‘I heard you, pinky.’

‘You,’ Asper gasped, ‘speak my language?’

‘I do.’ The longface’s smile seemed too wide for her narrow visage as she levelled the spike at Asper’s. ‘That’s what your weak breed calls “irony”, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not irony, it’s coincidence!’

‘Arguing languages while you’re about to be skewered?’ The longface shook her head. ‘Your death will be a boon to your race.’

Before she knew what was happening, Asper’s left arm, burning under her sleeve, snapped up to seize the woman by her throat. The voice shrieking inside her mind, begging for control, fell quiet against a violent crackle inside her. The fire in her veins slid through her fingers, up her shoulder and scorched a bare-toothed snarl upon her face.

‘I’m not going to die, heathen.’

The longface’s smile only grew broader, a predator feeling its prey squirm inside its jaws. Without a thought for the unnatural tension in Asper’s hand, she raised her spike and aimed the point directly at the priestess’s face.

‘VERMIN!’

The bellow degenerated into a wordless howl that rent the air. Eyes, white and pupilled alike, turned upwards to regard the massive wall of crimson muscle standing upon the shore.

Gariath’s own dark orbs were fixed upon the longface, apparently heedless of the captive she held, as he unfurled his wings, dropped upon all fours and charged, leaving sundered earth in his wake.

‘Not yet, anyway,’ the longface muttered, dropping the priestess and turning her weapon to face the new threat.

She did not have to wait long.

With a roar, Gariath sprang from the sand, wings flapping, claws outstretched and aiming for a tense purple throat. What he received instead was a vicious handful of iron as she raised her spike to strike at him. He seized it and twisted it away. She was driven backwards by the force of his lunge but did not stagger, her heels digging deeply into the sand.

His free hand came up, claws glistening, and was caught in her grasp. His muscles tensed, eyes widened, if only in momentary appreciation for a hand large and strong enough to hold his killing grasp at bay. A good fight, his toothy smile said without words, a good opponent. And, as he reared his head back, his horns finished the thought.

Not good enough.

His skull crashed against her nose, snapping her head backwards. When he drew away a face glistening with a moisture not his own, his eyes spoke of a deeper surprise. The longface’s grip held firm, her hands unshaking, as she turned upon the dragonman a scowl burning white through the crimson dripping down her face.

She snarled, a noise as vicious and fierce as Asper had ever heard Gariath utter, and returned the gesture, slamming her face against his snout. He reeled and Asper’s breath caught in her throat; Gariath had never reeled before.

He made a long, slow effort of drawing his face back up. And it was with longer, slower and far more unpleasant effort that he drew his tongue across his lips, tasting the red that dripped upon it.

‘Oh,’ he said through his smile, ‘I like you.’

His nostrils flared, snorting a cloud of crimson into her eyes. Her flinch left her unprepared for the head that followed. His skull smashed against hers; she quivered. His horns crushed her forehead; she released him and staggered backwards.

As if infuriated by the sudden lapse in her strength, Gariath drove his head forwards a third time, sending the longface to her knees. His rage-laden howl became the song of a violent choir as he brought his fists down upon her back. She withstood two hammering blows before buckling, collapsing to the earth.

Not nearly satisfied, Gariath fell on her, continuing to rain fists upon her until the sound of meat slapping meat became the sound of thick branches snapping.

It wasn’t until the sound of a particularly moist sponge being wrung reached her ears that Asper finally spoke up.

‘Enough, Gariath.’

‘You’re right.’ The dragonman rose, flicking thick droplets from his hands. ‘This one’s almost finished.’ At an errant twitch from the purple body, he brought his foot up and then down, smiling at the sound of undercooked porridge being spilled. ‘Tough one, though.’

‘There are more of them.’

His eyes lit up with a glimmer that Asper often found charming in children being handed presents.

‘Where?’

‘Later. We need to find Dread and-’

‘Where?’

He stood before her, the stink from his body, and parts of the longface’s body, roiling into her nostrils. She did not turn away, despite the pleas of her senses; his twitching arms suggested that there was only one acceptable gesture to make. And, with a sigh, she pointed out over the sea to the black vessel.

He shoved her aside, scowling across the waters. The ship cut through the froth like a black spear, propelled by its harmony of oars. Purple bruises lined the low deck, and in each pulse of purple muscle, Gariath saw something that made his smile threaten to split his face in two.

‘They’re not so fast,’ he grunted, stalking towards the water. ‘I can still catch them.’

‘Catch them?’ Asper turned an incredulous glare on him. ‘Catch them? There are over thirty of them on that ship!’

‘A ship heading for the tower,’ Gariath pointed out. ‘A tower filled with Lenk and two other weaklings.’

‘Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you care about them.’

‘Fine, but only because I can insult you in so many other ways. Like this.’ His hands went limp at the wrists as he began dancing from foot to foot on his toes, whining through his teeth. ‘Oh! Oh! A bunch of scary purple women! Whatever shall we do?’ He gasped, reached out and slapped her face hard. ‘How about we kill them?’

‘Just because that’s the only answer you know doesn’t mean it’s the right one,’ she snarled, rubbing her face. ‘They’re dangerous. That last one almost killed me.’

‘Such a phenomenon ceased being interesting the last four hundred and twenty-six times it happened.’

‘With Dread, we can-’

‘You can. With the skinny little runt, I can sit around listening to two spineless imbeciles and waste time that could be better spent killing.’ He waved her off, stalking into the surf. ‘See you in the afterlife, if you ever make it.’

‘You expect to die,’ she called after him, ‘and you’re still going?’

‘It should have ceased to be shocking after the four hundred and twenty-seventh time.’

The curse she flung at his tail was lost, as was the tail, behind a screen of froth. She watched him become a red blur, his wings, arms and legs pumping to propel him beneath the waves and towards his target. She snarled, stamped her foot and found herself caught between cursing and envying him.

He, at least, would be doing something to help the others.

Gariath’s words were true, she knew; should their companions run into the longfaces, there would likely be nothing left to drift ashore. She admitted to herself with less shame than she expected that the dragonman had voiced concern for their companions before she had.

Now he was off, with at least a shallow facade of compassion behind him, to at least attempt to help Lenk and the others. And she stood on shore, helpless, left arm burning with impotent fury.

‘Where’s he going?’

She glanced up at Dreadaeleon’s approach, immediately noting the smoky tendrils he flicked from his fingers.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

‘Found something purple further up the beach,’ he replied, ‘fried it.’

‘It’s not important. Look, there’s-’ She paused, blinked at him. ‘Wait, what? Fried her? Just like that?’

‘Her?’

‘It was a woman.’

‘Oh. . wait, really?’ He flapped a hand. ‘It. . she had a sword, she was waving it at me. I was busy searching for Greenhair, I didn’t have time not to fry her.’ He stared out over the sea. ‘But where’s Gariath going?’ His eyes went wide at the sight of the black ship. ‘Furthermore, what’s that?’

‘A ship,’ she replied curtly. ‘Isn’t that obvious? It’s also full of more purple women, all armed, all irate, all heading for Lenk and the others.’

‘As well as the demons,’ Dreadaeleon pointed out.

‘Right. There are demons in there, too.’ She began to wade into the surf. ‘Gariath’s heading out to help and we have to, as well.’

It wasn’t until the water was up to her thighs that she realised both that she was not dragonman enough to swim out to Irontide and that Dreadaeleon was still standing on the shore, staring at her in befuddlement. She whirled, turning a scowl upon him.

‘What are you waiting for?’ She gestured wildly at the water. ‘Make an ice bridge. . or an ice boat, some kind of ice. . whale. Do something.’

‘Like what?’ He held his hands out to his sides. ‘It doesn’t seem like anything needs to be done. The longfaces hate the demons. We hate the demons and the longfaces. Let one kill the other and we can clean up afterwards.’

‘If Lenk and the others get caught between the demons and the longfaces, there won’t be enough left of them to clean up with a dirty rag,’ she snarled. ‘If you won’t help, sit here and wallow in a pool of your own cowardice, but at least call Greenhair to see if she can help me.’

‘Call her? She’s not a dog.’ He snorted. ‘Besides, I couldn’t find her. She vanished beneath the water.’

‘All the more reason for you to help me,’ she replied hotly. ‘What do you suppose will happen to her when whoever’s the victor of this little clash comes out?’

‘What do I suppose will happen to a siren capable of hiding anywhere in the limitless blue sea?’ He tapped his chin, her scowl deepening with each strike of his finger. ‘Goodness, maybe she’ll come out and ask for a hug?’

Her face grew red with the scathing fury building up behind lips twisting into a grimace fierce enough to spew it. Her left hand trembled at her side, burning angrily, demanding to be wrapped about the boy’s throat. If he noticed such a thing, however, he paid it only as much care as was required to wave a hand as though batting away a particularly irate gnat.

‘It may seem callous,’ he continued, turning to walk away, ‘but my solution is both logical and fair. They’d abandon us in a heartbeat and you know it.’

‘Being an adventurer isn’t about being fair,’ she snarled, tearing through the water towards him, ‘it’s about suffering every miserable person the Gods deem fit to throw into your company.’ She raised a fist angrily, his head a greasy black pimple waiting to be popped. ‘And dealing with it the best you can at the mo-’

The burning in her arm dissipated with such force as to be painful. Quietly, she lowered it, stared at it with wide eyes. It felt strange in its socket: no longer so heavy, no longer so hot. It felt exactly like her right arm, it felt. . normal.

That, she thought, has never happened before.

But it paled in comparison to the sensation that followed.

A feeling straddling pain and ecstasy swept over her. Her flesh grew gooseskin beneath her robe, a chill crept down her back, wrapping about her spine like a centipede with icy, frigid legs. She felt her voice catch in her throat, unsure how to respond to the feeling. Then, with a suddenness that made her knees buckle, the chill twisted inside her body, becoming violently hot.

The sun seemed incredibly oppressive at that moment, as though it reached down with a golden hand to glide past cloth, flesh, muscle and bone. It seized her essence in a scalding, fiery grip and shook vigorously. She could feel it pushing down upon her, a great pressure forcing her skin in upon itself.

She would never have noticed Dreadaeleon’s hand clenching about her arm had she not spied his scrawny fingers. He seized her with a strength belied by his frailty, he stared at her with an intensity she’d never seen in him. Behind the dark orbs of his eyes, crimson light danced like a flock of agitated fireflies.

‘What. .’ Her voice came reluctantly to her lips. ‘What are you-’

‘You feel it.’ He spoke with a firmness not his own.

‘Feel. . what?’

‘It. Cold. Hot.’

With surprising strength, he tightened his grip on her left arm. She felt her heart leap into her throat. He knows, she screamed in her own mind, he knows, he knows, he knows. Of course he knows. He knows everything. He knows what it is. She tensed her fingers, the burning returning. It’s hot enough to torch him. He knows.

If he intended to act on that knowledge, however, he did not. At least, not the way she expected. Instead, he pressed his palm against hers. It felt freezing, then hot enough to rival even her own heat.

‘You can sense it,’ he whispered, ‘can’t you?’

‘Sense what?’ she asked, hysteric as she tore her hand away from his. ‘I don’t know what you’re-’

‘Venarie. Magic.’

The fireflies behind his eyes, the ever-present, if faint, mark of wizardry in his stare, went alight. His gaze became a pair of pyres, crimson energy seeping out in great flashes. He turned his scowl out to sea, the pyres becoming thin red gashes.

‘There is. . a wizard out there.’

Her gaze followed his, towards the only thing present upon the sea.

The black ship drew into Irontide’s ominous shadow, blending into the darkness. But Asper could still see it, clear as a fire on fresh-fallen snow. Though she knew she stared into darkness, she felt the ship, sensed it as she might an itch between the shoulder blades. She felt it throb, felt it twitch.

And then she felt it stand up and stride to the prow of the ship.

Something stirred atop the tower’s battlements. A chorus of chattering teeth and throaty gibbers cut through the sky. The great crown of white shifted as a hundred bulbous blue eyes spotted the ship.

Like a wound bleeding white, the Omens toppled from the tower, pouring over the side with flapping wings and gnashing teeth. In twisting, chattering harmony, they reared, their mimicked voices of the long dead clashing off one another in a hideous howl as they rose, then descended upon the purple invaders.

‘NYUNG!’ The command went up from the longfaces, audible even over the cacophony.

The vessel came to a sudden halt, bobbing upon the water like a floating coffin. Purple figures rose, drawing back bows made of the same black wood as the ship, arrows aimed at the descending gibber.

The male stood before them, his white hair whipping about his face, his robes billowing about his frail body as he turned a defiant stare towards the winged frenzy.

‘Here it comes.’

Asper was numb to Dreadaeleon’s voice, numb to everything save the freezing sensation coursing through her body and the sudden weight in her left arm.

The Omens swooped upon the ship in a twisting column, shadow and sky painted writhing white as they tucked their wings against their plump bodies and turned their hooked noses and yellow teeth to the longfaces.

With an eerie casualness to his movements, the male raised his hands. His purple, bony fingers knotted together in agonised symmetry as they bent in ways they were not meant to. He shouted a chorus of words not in his own tongue, nor the tongue of humans. They were familiar, if incomprehensible to Asper, and her eyes widened as she realised she had heard them from Dreadaeleon’s mouth before.

‘Magic,’ she gasped.

His voice boomed, granted an unnatural echo. An un-present wind swept his hair back, revealing a frigid blue glow engulfing his eyes. He continued to speak the words and the azure energy bathed his fingertips, sweeping up his arms.

The spectacle was not lost on the Omens.

Those in front reared in mid-descent, colliding with the ones still swooping, and the column became a messy cloud. The flying parasites beat each other with their wings, bit each other with their needles, struggling to get free of the mob of feathers and flesh. Their crazed gibberish became a unified howl of terror as the blue glow rose from below.

‘This,’ Dreadaeleon gasped, ‘will be big.’

He was not mistaken. The longface’s words of power ended with an echo that stretched into eternity as his mouth opened wide. In the wake of his voice, a howl rose.

The ship shuddered as an angry gale tore itself from the longface’s mouth. The air became blue, shimmering blades tinged with razor shards of frost. From the slight, wispy creature, a maw of frigid azure and ivory swept up to crunch rime-laden teeth about the Omens.

The gale grew high, kissing the battlements and devouring the creatures’ wailing. The Omens were swept inside it, caroming off one another in bursts of black blood and broken bones. They thrashed, bit, rent each other as they struggled to escape. Many died immediately, limp bodies twisting silently in the wind. More lived, thrashing even as their feathers hardened upon their flesh.

The maw glowed with a horrific blue. The Omens lost their colour in it, frozen bodies becoming so many flakes inside it. Still and silent, the statues clashed against each other, frozen anatomies snapping to become lost in the wind. Hooked noses, lipless mouths, bulging eyes: one by one, they snapped off, crashed against wings, feet and heads before twisting off to crash into torsos, tails and scalps.

Only after there was nothing left to crash did the longface close his mouth.

His trembling fingers undid themselves, his eyes returned to their heavy-lidded whiteness and the wind that had whipped his hair vanished. Folding his hands inside his sleeves, he turned and took a seat at the end of the ship.

As though nothing had happened, the females took up their oars in resignation to duty. The chant resumed, the rowers worked. The ship glided across the sea, towards Irontide, through an artificial snowfall of powdered blood and pulverised flesh.

Asper could but stare. In an instant, the harbingers of hell, the precursors of horror, the Omens had been reduced to nothing. Reduced to nothing, she added to herself, by a display of magic she had not even dreamed possible. And now the ship continued forwards, the male’s expression as casual as the hand that brushed red flakes from his shoulder.

Asper could but stare as they continued towards Irontide. Asper could but stare as such a force continued towards her friends.

Dreadaeleon seemed much less indecisive.

‘Come,’ he said, brushing past her with a forcefulness that she might have gone agog at, were she not already dumbstruck. ‘We have to go.’

‘What?’ she gasped, breath returning to her. ‘Now?’

‘That longface is a heretic.’

‘You don’t even know what religion he is.’

‘Not a heretic of whatever made-up god you choose to serve,’ the boy snarled at her. He gestured towards the ship. ‘Look at him! He’s not even breathing hard!’

Asper frowned; she could sense his calm well enough, as she had sensed his power before. Without seeing the longface, she knew Dreadaeleon was right. Dreadaeleon, of course, wasn’t waiting for her approval. He waded out from the shore, inhaled deeply and blew a cloud of frost over the ocean. In the few gasping breaths that followed, a small ice floe had formed, bobbing upon the surface.

‘It violates all laws of magic, all laws of the Venarium.’ The boy climbed upon the white sheet, surprisingly sure-footed. ‘That, at least, is worth getting involved over.’

‘But not your friends?’ Asper asked, raising a brow.

‘Friends die. Magic is for ever.’ He glanced down at her, extended a hand that seemed far too big for him. ‘Are you coming, or would you rather sit and savour the irony for a bit?’

She glanced out over the sea at a sudden stirring. The male was up and at the prow again, she sensed, his hands outstretched. She felt with her arm the explosive power boiling between his palms. She saw with her eyes the prow aimed at Irontide’s great, rock-scarred wall.

Waiting to see what he was about to do seemed decidedly unwise. With a grunt, she waded into the surf and took the boy’s hand.

‘It’s not ironic. .’